This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. It's good to be here. I've been... mostly on the go, traveling for the last week. And it's good to land back in the valley. For the past few years, I've been mostly focusing on Suzuki Roshi's teaching. which is a subtle, deep teaching in which he's frequently reminding people not to be attached to the teaching.

[01:12]

And that the teaching is for us to understand ourselves. And this practice period I wanted to begin with a good foundation in body awareness practice and also awareness of what's going on in our feelings, noticing how we react, noticing our habitual karmic patterns, and Basically, it's making friends with ourselves. And if we make friends with ourselves, then we can actually be more helpful taking care of ourselves. And we have ultimately, making friends with ourselves, we're making friends with everyone.

[02:19]

Everyone is not separate. In fact, the way we Who we think is everyone else is actually our own mind. So we're always finding our own composure in making peace, if we can, and waking up, this practice of waking up, waking up to what's in our own field of awareness. So I wanted to begin this practice period with the Sadhipatthana Sutta, the foundations of mindfulness, as I mentioned. I was just looking at the calendar, and it looks like we'll have a couple of classes, two classes, in a session. We'll talk about a practice of mindfulness during the session. This month, towards the end of the month, Sojin Weitzman is going to arrive.

[03:24]

And he and I talked a little bit this past weekend when we were both up in Oregon at the SCBA conference and decided when he comes, he'll just focus on the Sandokai and Suzuki Roshi's teaching on the branching streams, the book, The Branching Streams, which is commentary on the Sandokai. So he'll focus on that. So we'll have a couple of classes on that. and then we'll plunge into the sandokai and then we'll see where we're at after that. He'll only be around for about 10 days or so and so we may have more frequent classes during that time and I won't be here for all of that time. Anyway, I think it'll be a wonderful adventure. So I invite you to join the adventure. I have a big stack of books here, upside down.

[04:29]

See, I'm trying to turn all this around. So I wanted to begin a little more with the context from Suzuki Roshi saying This is a quote taken from Zen Mind Beginner's Mind. The purpose of studying Buddhism is not to study Buddhism, but to study ourselves. It is impossible to study ourselves without some teaching. But just by studying the teaching alone, it is impossible to know what I, myself, am. Through the teaching, we may understand our human nature. But the teaching is not we ourselves.

[05:29]

It is some explanation of ourselves. So if you are attached to the teaching or the teacher, that is a big mistake. So many people make that mistake. And you might not even know it. You might not even know sometimes how attached you are until... something happens or something comes up and then you have some feeling. And so then that's a place to study your attachment. So strictly speaking, in the Zen school, which is always making an effort to be true to the source, understanding that the source is always right here, that we have nothing in particular. So we don't really have anything. So this practice is also the practice of non-knowing.

[06:37]

Not being attached to knowing something, we can say, is non-knowing. At the same time, it doesn't mean you don't know things. And as we go along here, you may know more and more. So it's not actually forgetting or discarding your intellect, but it is not being attached to what you know. So there's a big difference. So it's quite good, actually, to know a lot. And to know it in the context of non-knowing. So he's... pointing here at, okay, the point of studying is to really thoroughly, completely understand ourselves. This is a bodhisattva vow practice.

[07:38]

So fundamentally the practice of this temple, this practice place is the bodhisattva vow. The bodhisattva vow is to completely see what is, accept what is, and further it, further the awakening of it, further the arousing of bodhicitta for everything, for all beings. So when one of the books that, do we have this on reserve yet? It's one of the books we have on reserve, the Satipatthana. This one, translation and commentary by An Alayo says, Satipatthana, the direct path to realization. So on my copy here, I crossed out two and made it the direct path of realization.

[08:43]

So I think, well, does a preposition make a difference? it really does point to a different understanding. So this is, this understanding is maybe from the person who's commenting on this book, who's writing and translating is here is thinking, okay, there is a path to realization, to awakening and enlightenment, and that's somewhere off there, and this is the path to it. But our understanding in this, And this lineage tradition is that this is right here, right now. This present moment is the place of awakening. It's really not different. I think this is the same teaching. When we get into studying the Sandokai, we'll be looking at how, okay, the two different teachings, the northern school, the southern school, fundamentally the same. But still, it helps me to remember, to change the preposition to

[09:48]

Oh, this whole path, the whole path itself is realization. It's not that realization is someplace off in the distance, but the path itself is realization. So we take up mindfulness practice with that fundamental understanding. So this is the practice of cultivating our confidence in in true nature, cultivating our confidence in what is. Each step of the way, each time you take a step, you are establishing confidence in true nature. So I have another quote I've used before from Suzuki Roshi saying, the secret of all the teachings of Buddhism is how to live in each moment, how to obtain absolute freedom moment after moment.

[10:53]

So this is complete liberation, moment after moment. Moment after moment says we exist in interdependency, interdependency, this is also a word that will come up later, interdependency with past and future and all existence. So this is past, future, present, all existence. So the entire phenomenal universe, right? Moment by moment, we exist in interdependency with past and future and all existence. In short, if you practice Zazen, concentrating on your breathing, moment after moment, you will be keeping the precepts. You will be helping yourself and helping others and attaining liberation. So this is a very simple prescription, right?

[11:59]

Just practice Azen, concentrating on your breathing, moment by moment, knowing what your whole body and mind is doing. And in that way, everything is... in order. The precepts are kept. You're helping yourself. You're helping others. So my experience is that studying the foundations of mindfulness is also a way of supporting this practice that Suzuki Roshi is describing here. Sazen. Concentration. Breathing. Moment after moment. So this, we have a number of texts. So I mentioned this one already. And we have the Diga Nikaya.

[13:00]

Do we have this on reserve? Okay, so the Diga Nikaya on reserve. I don't know if the page is marked. Page 335, The Greater Discourse on the Foundations of Mindfulness. So we have that. We have this slender book. It's only 150 pages or so by Thich Nhat Hanh. So the sutra on the foundations of mindfulness is not so long. It's only because he translates it here right at the beginning. And it's how many pages? this much. So the sutra is not that much. But doing it, doing this practice, maybe this much.

[14:03]

So this may be very accessible and he gives some specific exercises that spell out in a little more detail what the practices are that are suggested in the foundations of mindfulness. And here at the beginning, he has his translation. He said, Satipatthana, which is this foundation of mindfulness. He says, Sati. In Sanskrit, it's Smriti Upasthana. So this is Satipatthana is Pali. So this word is a compound of sati, which means mindfulness or remembering or returning or recalling. And upatana, which means place of abiding or establishment or application. And then he also says in Chinese, the title of the sutra is nyan chu.

[15:11]

Nyan jyu is to be, nyan is to be mindful of, put one's attention to or to remember. Put one's attention to. So there's a sense of placing one's mind, attention. A sense of placing one's attention. And jyu means either dwelling place or act of dwelling. So, or the act of being present or establishing oneself. So, Nyanju, therefore, may be translated as the ground of mindfulness, or the four establishments of mindfulness. So, it's helpful to know that just, that it's, or maybe it's just a sense of comfort or confirmation that the sutra is translated into Sanskrit and then translated into Chinese and then translated from Chinese back into English here is very similar to the Pali and the translation from Pali.

[16:27]

So I think this is particularly valuable for all schools of Buddhism. There's one other book Do we have this on reserve yet? Healing through the dark emotions? Okay, I just got another copy that we'll put on reserve. I think this is a great contemporary kind of blending of psychology and mindfulness, particularly focused on... what Miriam Greenspan, the author here, refers to as the dark emotions, grief, fear, and despair. So she's specialized in practicing with grief, fear, and despair. And I think it's a very helpful book. She has particularly...

[17:33]

Probably the next class we'll get into looking at the samskaras. So this class I want to focus on body and the next class we'll go into feelings and states of mind. So when we get into feelings and states of mind the states of mind that may be described as grief, fear and despair these are complex states that have different, say, dharmas present in the Abhidharma system of dharmas. But it's very helpful because people who are practicing this practice sometimes discover that you might discover that you have emotions if you hadn't noticed it before. Some people take a while. to discover.

[18:33]

And so she's working with this in a very contemporary way. She's also a Vipassana, a practitioner. So she brings Buddhism and mindfulness directly into her therapeutic work. So I'll put one on the shelf. The last part of this, she has a whole kind of what she calls a home course in emotional alchemy, which is kind of abbreviated, but it's a whole series of exercises. And one of the things I appreciated is in each of her groups of exercises, oh, these are from, I was reading this on the airplane, Alaska Airlines is here. She also has the practice of not doing anything in her exercises.

[19:38]

So there's a practice of doing something, and then there's a practice of not doing anything. So she includes that in her understanding, which is, I think, quite helpful. So then we have a printout I'll pass out here. I'll just start these around. So Myoki, wonderful assistant here, took a suggestion that I made and ran with it and created, I'll just start passing these out, kind of an outline of the Satipatthana Sutta, a commentary and some additional material. So I think you can keep a copy. These are copies to keep. You can make notes on them. You can use it to refer back to.

[20:40]

So here in four sheets of paper, you've got the whole thing. It's even... So it's very easy. I think it's good to know. It's good to keep this handy because... Who knows? Three years from now, five, ten years from now, you will be in a place of giving a talk, and you'll say, I want to give a talk about the hindrances, and what are, I've forgotten, what are the hindrances? And here you can just look and say, oh yeah, the hindrances. They're laid out right here. And many other, many other things basic Buddhist teachings, the Four Noble Truths. What are the Four Noble Truths? Oh, they're in here. So this can always be helpful as a reference. And I find Myoki's handwriting to be legible.

[21:45]

Thank you. So let's just begin to take a look at this. She begins with a quote. Does everyone have a copy by now? They've made it around. If you don't, raise your hand. Are there extras someplace? The extras pass back to Mielke. She's sitting over there. Are there any questions so far? Yes? Smriti is mindfulness and upasana is abiding or establishing. So, we have a quote here from Suzuki Roshi.

[23:04]

Because of the double or paradoxical nature of truth, there should be no problem of understanding if you have big Mahayana mind. This kind of mind will be obtained by true Zazen. Obtained. Again, how to say what happens in Dalazen. What's that mind? So Mahayana mind, as I was saying in the first Dharma talk I gave, it was Hinayana practice, Mahayana mind. A clunky Hinayana practice. So I'd say it's good to welcome your clunkiness in taking up the practice of the foundations of mindfulness.

[24:07]

I think what I'll do actually is I'll go back and re-read the first paragraph in this text here. I'll make a few changes as I go. just so we remember the beginning. So you can put your paper down for a minute. This is, it's outlined here, but it sounds like this. Thus have I heard. Once the Buddha was staying among the Kurus. There is a market town of theirs called Kama Sadama, and there the Buddha addressed the monks, saying, Monks, maybe, I don't think he said monks, maybe he said bhikkhus, but we can say practitioners or followers of the way.

[25:12]

So let's say followers of the way. So followers of the way. And they replied, sensei, teacher. And the Buddha said, Followers of the way, there is this way to the purification of beings, purification of beings, for the overcoming of sorrow and distress, for the disappearance of pain and sadness, for the gaining of the right path, for the realization of nirvana. That is to say, the four foundations of mindfulness. What are the four? Here, a follower of the way abides contemplating body as body, Ardent, clearly aware and mindful, having put aside hankering and fretting for the world. She abides contemplating feelings as feelings. She abides contemplating mind as mind. He abides contemplating mind objects as mind objects.

[26:16]

Ardent, clearly aware and mindful, having put aside hankering and fretting for the world. And how does a follower of the way Abide. Contemplating the body as body. Here, one having gone into the forest or to the root of a tree or to a quiet place, sits down cross-legged, holding the body erect, having established mindfulness. Mindfully, one breathes in. Mindfully, one breathes out. Mindfully, breathing in a long breath, one knows. one breathes in a long breath. Breathing out, a long breath. One knows, this is a long breath. Breathing in, a short breath. One knows, this is a short breath. Breathing out, one knows, this is a short breath.

[27:20]

One trains oneself thinking, I will... Breathe in, conscious of the whole body. So here I would change it. I would say, in our practice, we don't put the emphasis on I will. We put the emphasis on the breath itself. So breathe in. So this is breathing in, conscious of the whole body. This is. So one trains oneself thinking, this is breathing out, conscious of the whole body. One trains oneself thinking, this is breathing in, calming the whole bodily process. One trains oneself thinking, this is breathing out, calming the whole bodily process. Just as a skilled turner or assistant in making a long turn knows one is making a long turn, or in making a short turn knows one is making a short turn, so one

[28:25]

A follower of the way, in breathing in a long breath, knows that one breathes in a long breath and trains oneself, thinking, breathing out, one calms the whole bodily process. So, a follower of the way abides, contemplating body as body internally, contemplating body as body externally. contemplating body as body both internally and externally, contemplating arising phenomena in the body. One contemplates vanishing phenomena in the body. One contemplates both arising and vanishing phenomena in the body. Or mindfulness that there is a body is present just to the extent necessary for knowledge and awareness. And one abides, independent, not clinging to anything in the world.

[29:29]

And that, followers of the way, is how one abides, contemplating body as body. So that's the opening. Any questions? Yeah. The sutra or the book? This is the Digha, D-I-G-H-A, Nikaya, N-I-K-A-Y-A. And that means the long discourses of the Buddha. The page number that you mentioned? Ah, yes. 335, someone remembers. So I actually think when I read it, in this translation, I run into gender bias.

[30:39]

I run into, say, monk, layperson bias. So it's actually helpful for me to, as I read it, I shifted out of those gender pronouns. And I think... What I'd like to do is rewrite this without those, so people just don't run into that and feel somehow excluded. There is a hand up over here. Royce. A general question. I would like to know, are we just beginning to shift our meditation practice to use the establishment of mindfulness, as opposed to like Shikantazo, throughout this active period, over some time? Or, I mean, how should I view when I walk into the Zen note, which would be by volition? Yeah, excellent question.

[31:41]

My suggestion, well, first of all, I say, your practice is your practice. Your practice is up to you. First of all. And it's And it's voluntary. And so secondly, given that, I have a suggestion. My suggestion is that for the beginning of this practice period, for the beginning of it, and through the first sashin, that we experiment with taking up the foundations of mindfulness practice. And my understanding is that Shikantaza is very big. Shikantaza, just sitting, includes everything that happens while you're sitting, while you're just sitting. So this is really the understanding of our lineage, too.

[32:45]

Shikantaza can be described various ways, but also when I work with individual students, I may make particular suggestions for a period of time to focus on some particular thing during Zazen, you know, for a period of time. So that's kind of one and one, you know, working with the teacher and the teacher's suggestions are not necessarily always followed. I've noticed. Or they're misunderstood, you know, sometimes it's misunderstood. So you have to come back and check, did you mean this or did you mean that, you know? it's good to check. But I'd suggest that it could be helpful. And one of, and I saw your hand up too, Denny, I'll come back. But one place in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, Suzuki Roshi talks about the traditional jhanas, what are called jhanas,

[33:54]

that are four form jhanas and four formless jhanas, and he kind of goes into a little abbreviated description of that and says, well, this is good for Zen students to know about these things. And partly because you may find yourself someplace. Oh, here I am in the formless jhana. As soon as you say I, though, you're out of it. But if you're attached to that, but you might just say, oh, this is one of those jhana states. Oh, yeah. So, okay. You might just discover, oh, yeah, I'm in this particular jhana state. Might be just helpful to orient you to know, okay, now I know a little more clearly from my own experience what they're talking about, you know, in this sutra or that sutra. So then when you come across it in your sutra study, you say, oh, okay.

[34:56]

So it's not so foreign. So everything here in this way, Buddhism has a tremendous canon of teachings. But our practice is to take up this practice in our bodies, focus on the body. And all the teachings are actually in your own body. They're not foreign. they may seem unfamiliar of course but all the teachings are just pointing to what it is to be a human being so this is maybe helpful to take up these suggestions for a while and I'll probably talk about it some during the first session too and then after that we can re-evaluate what's most helpful and people are actually in different I'd say coming up against different issues, resistances, distractions, stories that are coming up in your practice.

[36:02]

And so it's helpful to then sometimes to say, oh, okay, this may be a helpful way, as Suzuki was saying. It's helpful to have some teaching to study ourselves. So in that spirit, I'd say. take these as suggestions and experiment with them in nirzasa. Danny. So I have kind of a two-part question. The first part is, so what are we doing when we're not being mindful? In the sense of, Basis of that question is the second part of my question, which is, so is mindfulness the mind watching the mind? Sometimes it can be, but it's pretty easy watching the mind to be carried by the mind in a small sense.

[37:19]

Coming back to the first point, your second part is related to the first part. What are we doing when we're not being mindful? This is a very interesting kind of question. Is it possible to just be carried away by your karmic habits? Most of the time people are involved in what I would say karmic patterns. without understanding the patterns that one has already adopted. And so one's life is lived on a kind of a secondary dualistically removed kind of life without actually being completely entered into this life. And that's the usual way, actually.

[38:23]

Not actually being mindful. So these foundations of mindfulness are actually just pointing their direction. So yeah, what are we doing most of the time? When you're sitting zazen, you might notice it's making an effort to concentrate on the present moment. you might discover, oh, I just spent, I don't know how long, planning and imagining something in the future, right? Without being aware that I was planning and imagining the future. So planning and imagining the future can also be present moment awareness. But often we're just imagining the future without knowing that we're imagining the future. Or it's very often, it's much more likely that you're in the past or the future than you are in the present.

[39:34]

Because that's the usual way that human beings function. Missing what's happening in the present moment. So Suzuki Roshi is saying our practice is to be here in the present moment, moment by moment. Another hand was up here. John? I just wanted to be clear about your guidance. I think Thich Nhat Hanh, for example, offers a specific text to use along with reading, like reading in, I call my body, reading out, I smile. Are you offering something like that as I practice? It's good to bring that up because, as I just mentioned, I have some concern about the statements that emphasize I, that I'm doing something. So I'd say be careful with that. But yeah, you can take up Thich Nhat Hanh's suggestion and bring it up here and say, concentrating the mind on this breathing, this is...

[40:50]

And you might begin a period of zazen saying, this period of zazen, I'm establishing the intention to count the breath at the beginning of zazen. And I have a suggestion, counting the breath. Counting the breath. And counting the breath, this says, You know, there are big debates about where you count the breath. My own basic suggestion is to count the breath where you most notice the breath. Make it easy. Where do you have the sense, experience of the breath? Begin there, you know. But I combine that with our Zen focus on hara, putting attention here. So putting attention on the breath here, is to say, okay, when I feel the breath, the in-breath here, I count one.

[41:57]

And then being aware of the breath internally, I'm aware of the breath in the body internally. And I'm aware of the duration of this breath. So you may experiment with saying, okay, this is a long breath. Or this is a short breath. But I think more of the point is to say this is, this breath, and fully, mindfully attending to the experience of this breath. Out breath, one. So in breath, one, out breath, we're still on one, one breath. In breath, one, out breath, one. attending to the complete out-breath. Staying right with this breath. And then two. In-breath, out-breath.

[43:02]

So there are many suggestions. And I'd say experiment with the suggestions in the text. So you can experiment with, there's also the full awareness of breathing. Do we have that on reserve? It's kind of a companion text, which really goes more into just breath awareness itself. And to develop your own practice by using these suggestions, but always coming back to, this is a practice of this moment. This breath. So if you're counting to 10 or 9, or you can say, well, I'll count to 7. Sometimes we say count to 10. Count to 10, and then, and it's helpful to me to count backwards then. From 10 to 0. Because sometimes there's kind of automatic counting.

[44:09]

It's harder to do automatic counting going... And sometimes you might find yourself at 15, you know, say, oh, but if you stop at 10 and then go 9, 8, 7, you might try that and discover, you know, the tendency to just think about it rather than just stay on the breath. There were a couple other hands. There's a hand up here. When I was reading, I just stopped in study hall reading the part about what is sati. And it said, belief, uninvolved, detached observation that does not interfere, bear attention before conceptualization, being directly face to face with an object. And so we're bringing our attention to various parts. And on the part of contemplation, you said one contemplates body in body, one contemplates feelings in feelings.

[45:10]

there's this emphasis on the direct experience of the body or the feelings through the body and through the feelings. Could you maybe explain that a little better? But I think the transcendence through the actual experience seems like the main deal, the main point. Say that again? What's the main deal? The direct experience, experiencing through the mind, through the feelings, through the body. So through it is in the sense of being entered into it. Yeah. So if you are concentrating, the one word that jumped out when you were first reading, the word aloof,

[46:10]

I thought, no, I don't like that. Because I think aloof has a sense of being kind of above and detached in the sense of separated from, in my mind anyway, maybe contemporary usage. So I don't think aloof is not so helpful. But detached in the sense of not attached. Very interesting. Very subtle, actually. Very subtle point. To stay, have your attention on the breath. Let's just stick with breath today. We'll get into feelings soon enough. But just to actually stay with the breath with a concentration on the direct experience of the breath until There's no separation of your mind and the breath. Okay?

[47:18]

So your mind is the experience of the breath in the body. Your mind is the experience of the breath around the body. Your mind is the experience of the breath without actually any separation of inside, outside the body. The breath is actually, it's not what you think, you know. Just as nothing is what you think. The breath is not what you think. So the sutra, basically you think that labeling these things we're experiencing. So labeling is maybe helpful practice for a while. If you're if your mind is really not close to the breath, and to find, oh, breath, where is it? Okay, this is an in-breath. It might be helpful. Everyone here is maybe different, you know, and you yourself may on one day have a different, come to the practices of zazen in a different state of mind, more distracted or more concentrated.

[48:35]

So this is a tool. And again, the context is our Zen Mahayana context, which is pointing directly at experience. So we quote Bodhidharma saying, this is the practice that's not the practice of scripture and letters, but it's the practice pointing directly at the human experience or human heart. So these are pointers. So you're pointing, how do you find the breath in your body? I know from my own experience and many other people practicing for years and years and then at some point realizing, oh, now I get it. This is what it's like to actually be in the breath. So some of you may find that access to the breath on a particular day.

[49:42]

It comes up pretty quickly. And others may find you just have to keep coming back again and again. And using the tool of counting and identifying in-breath. Oh, this is an in-breath. This is an out-breath. and then noticing thoughts that anything that comes up and begins to distract from that concentration on this breath. Whatever it is. Some people get involved in judgment about the breath. It's very common. Oh, this is a short breath. This is an extremely short breath. I don't want this short breath. I want a longer breath. This breath is too tight. I feel constricted.

[50:42]

This breath is, you know, and there's all kinds of, there can be all kinds of chatter around it, right? So to notice that is included. The mind doing what it is doing is included. And you acknowledge it. Just as when we And the first thing we say after the robe chant in the morning, we say, all my ancient twisted karma. So acknowledging what the mind is doing while you're trying to concentrate, and coming back to concentration, you're acknowledging all my ancient twisted karma is this distracted mind going off and thinking about something else. So this is a training of concentration and to just come back focusing on bringing the mindful attention to the breath right here.

[51:43]

Where do I find it in the body? Look for it in the belly. Yes. Say that again? Giving up on that. Giving up on what? Directing your attention to any particular practice. This is fundamental again as a non-attachment. So in the context of non-attachment, we take up the practice. So yeah, you might need to, if you're noticing that there's a kind of rigidity in your way, in your tendency, how to concentrate, if you notice a tendency to say, become kind of rigid about it,

[53:05]

then notice that, and you say, oh, rigidity is something to let go of. Is that what you mean? and rigidity it's more about like just getting in general too wrapped up in the idea that this is like the whole idea of doing something in general and I find that like by combining doing something with like then the idea and the practicing experimentation with not doing something in the same period of meditation invigorates No, not doing something is also doing something. So, yeah, it's good to know the difference, the different feeling of doing something and not doing something.

[54:13]

And then it's going beyond doing and not doing. So it's good to also experiment. Yeah, it's good to experiment with not doing something. Because this is actually, in the end, it's not doing anything. Simply being present in the present moment, in full awareness, is not doing anything, and there's no one doing it. So yeah, if you think you're doing something, then yeah, sometimes it is very important. But the way to actually know what you're doing is this practice of, the sense of concentration is, again, It's definitely a direction that's really worth plumbing and thoroughly knowing what it's like to be completely concentrated on this breath. And again, it's in the context of this practice is nothing in particular.

[55:24]

So sure, it's good to not do something. And then notice, so when I'm not doing something... Who's not doing it? Okay? Yeah. There's another hand up there, and then I'll come back over here. I just had a question, and maybe you could elaborate, and similar to the question that Kevin was asking, from my own experience, practicing the passing of prayer and coming in Zen. Uh-huh. that leads to more deeper insight into the nature of your present moment existence and whatever is coming up. And I found that it was kind of a conflict for me coming to Zen, like I'd left all that behind and had this idea that I'm not supposed to be trying to gain any space of concentration because that's an idea that I'm this self gaining a space of concentration.

[56:36]

So I'm really happy that you're leading us in this way, teaching us in this way, because I think it's really valuable to have both perspectives or to be able to say, what is the value in concentration in our Zen practice? And so I don't know. Those kind of questions come through. So you just explained a little bit about the value of developing concentration. in our practice. And then I also think it was easy for me just to give up on concentration because it is an effort. It's coming, like you said, keep on coming back to the breath. And when that gets frustrating, it's easy to say, just shikantaza. Everything's in mind. Shikantaza is this practice of sitting, just sitting, completely abiding in the present moment.

[57:57]

If you think Shikantaza is easy, you're right, it is. However, It's also very difficult. It can be tricky because you might, if you think anything at all, then you're missing Shikantaza, right? That is, if you're invested in anything at all, you're missing Shikantaza. So Shikantaza is completely beyond definition. as we said earlier. And it also includes this statement of Suzuki Roshi saying, our practice is to be completely in the present moment, moment by moment, present moment. So when people would ask him, okay, what should you do?

[59:02]

Well, do what you're doing. Pay attention to what you're doing. If you're, whatever your job is, you know, if you're moving a rock, put your whole being right there, moving the rock. And so I think rocks that are placed around here, sometimes you can see, oh, this rock is placed by someone with their whole attention and placing this rock. not involved in anything else. So that's actually Shikantaza. Why, you know, you could say it's Zazen beyond, you know, sitting in the Zendo. The question, your question relates to the earlier one about what should we be doing this practice period? And I'm saying it's helpful to take up the practice of concentration. And

[60:03]

Thank you, Kitchen. So cut the carrots when you're cutting the carrots, right? And be pretty strict with yourself. That's why it's helpful to count from 1 to 10 and back. And notice... that you can actually establish the level of concentration that you can count from 1 to 10 and back any time you decide to do that. For some people that's extremely difficult. Actually, I was reading someone who they were teaching a mindfulness practice to Harvard medical students and they couldn't They just couldn't do it. They could never count to ten. They're too smart.

[61:03]

Or their minds were, you know, thinking about, I don't know, is this therapeutic or not? Is this going to be helpful or not? Am I going to pass the test or not? I don't know what they were thinking. So then John Kabat-Zinn was teaching him. He said, well, okay, just count to two. So one. And a lot of them couldn't do that. Couldn't get past one. So very active, busy minds have a lot of difficulty. So it's helpful to have a practice that cuts through the usual mind. So the usual mind, is your life run by your habits, by your usual mind? Or is your life directed by the deeper vow, which is coming from beyond your own selfishness? So in order to live from a place that is bodhicitta, that's not your own selfishness, it's helpful to

[62:21]

sometimes to experiment with selfishness and say, I want to be able to count to ten. I really want to be able to do that. What does it take if I set that as my intention? And then noticing the tendency to divert from that and go back to the practice of concentration. So, Any practice you take up, as I say, it's clunky. Any practice you take up, by clunky I mean it's limited. Well, Devin just left, but he was asking about non-doing, but I'm saying the practice of non-doing is also clunky, if you take that up. Now I'm doing non-doing. Good for me, right? Well, maybe it feels good because if one gets caught in one particular practice, then you need an antidote.

[63:26]

You need to change because otherwise you may not even notice it as kind of a rigidity, but there's a kind of rigidity that forms. It may be subtle. It may not be body. It may not even be noticeable in the body. Usually it is if you're really paying attention to the body. But it may be a rigidity of mind you're holding on to. So in the... In the Sambhogakaya body, it may be held as something preferred, you know. So we'll keep working with this, okay? Yeah. Michael. It's kind of all the same lines, but in talking with different monks that I've known from Japan, like Yuto, or reading... about the monasteries in Japan. It seems like a lot of Soto Zen begin their training with the breath and with counting the breath and not with saying even teaching abiding in this present moment.

[64:37]

And I've also read that when Dogen wrote his Call the Universal City when he returns from China, that it was written to an audience that basically at least had some basis in having trained breath practice or sitting practice as meditators, but not necessarily from a standpoint of shikantaza. And so looking at this, being able to sit and abide in the present moment, as you put it, as being kind of an advanced practice that people don't necessarily do in year one, And then going back in this practice period and looking at ways of looking at mindfulness and steps for working with concentration, it just leads me to feel like it seems natural and in alignment with what you see in Zen and its history. But it also makes me feel like there's a graduation process, that at some point I would need to be ready for shikantaza.

[65:42]

And that's just where I naturally go is feel like I need to work on these states of consciousness and hone my mindfulness in a way that would allow there to be some sort of useful sitting where I'm not abiding with anything other than what is arising. And that feels kind of goal oriented. Can you speak for that? Yeah. drop it. The process itself seems to or the way it appears as a process seems to imply that there is an achievement to be attained and there's a process to undertake. So again there's no There's no state to be attained.

[66:46]

So this is always directing your attention to present moment. This state right now. This place right now. This body right now. The feelings, this sensation in the body right now. And so these guidelines are establishing mindfulness. look like, oh, as it was in the title of this book, it looks like, oh, the path to realization. And so that's why I changed that at the very beginning. Looks like that. And that's the way our greedy nature immediately kicks in. Our greedy nature is, oh, I want something, you know. I want to end suffering, right? I want to end my own suffering.

[67:51]

And then, oh, then I also, I have this bodhisattva vow that people keep telling me about that I should not be so interested in ending my own suffering. I should be interested in ending everyone else's suffering first, right? So there's a tremendous wisdom in that. Not to be so interested in ending my own suffering. Which is to awaken with all beings. Direct might be useful but the direction is this direction. So they're still pointing. For me to say anything, for us to have a class, as Suzuki Roshi said, we need some teaching to help us study this.

[68:56]

We need some teaching. And then we also say, all teachings are fingers pointing at the moon. Where's the moon? The moon is right here. The enlightened being is already right here. The full awareness is already our natural endowment right here. And we need help realizing because of our karmic obstructions. Because we have adopted all these karmic obstructions. And we tend to be greedy. We want even more. We want to create more karma without having the negative result. But that's the way our minds work. We want more. And so there's this interplay.

[69:58]

Some of it is to learn to put aside small desires in the service of bigger and bigger one ultimate, we could say it's one ultimate desire. One ultimate desire, which is to completely wake up in this life. And to completely wake up in this life is nowhere else, it's right here. So, It's very hard to understand that that's the same as concentration on this moment. Waking up in this life is just concentration in this moment. Being this present moment. Jane, your hand just quickly went up. I also think of it as a process of letting go.

[71:12]

You can think of breath as letting go of a tool that will help you let go of everything else. And the breath is definitely in the present moment. So it's something that's always, you know you're going to be in the present moment if you're really with your breath. And to me it seems like more a tool for relaxing and letting go rather than something to grab onto and focus on. Yeah, okay. A tool for letting go. So having a tool for letting go of everything that's extraneous. Sometimes we say, yeah, let go of anything extra until you need a tool for letting go of anything extra, and then you let go of the tool.

[72:17]

But you discover that you've let go of the tool by being completely present in the breath this moment. You're right. The breath is very good as a touchstone because the breath is a sensation. Any sensation, actually, But the breath is a kind of a stream that you can stay with in the present moment. There's a continuous, evolving, flowing, changing experience. So there actually isn't any breath, but we call it breath. But this experience, this flowing, changing, which seems like it's something, it's actually not. It's empty, right? If you really pay attention to it closely, then you know, eventually, I say eventually, why do I say that? Well, because there is also process, you know?

[73:22]

There is process. At the same time, there's no process. This is... But being, say, awake or enlightened with all beings, you start right here. And you're always right here, because the beings that come up in your own mind are beings that you have to contend with. You have to wake up with the beings that are showing up, distracting you from your concentration. These are the beings that are here to help you. These beings show up to help you. So be friendly with them. Even the most annoying ones, they're here to help you wake up. As long as you have some resistance to them, then you need to continue to study and be curious and open to them.

[74:27]

Yes? yourself to be. So the being, it's kind of like there's sleep state of mind. And it's referred to here as one of the hindrances, right? Sloth and torpor. Sloth and torpor. Sloth and torpor on page four. Is that right? Yeah. Sloth and torpor is not necessarily just sleep in Zazen. There are other states of mind. Other times you can also be torpid or slothful. There are other ways to do that. But in Zazen, here it says, it's interesting, this has antidotes, right?

[75:35]

So there's an antidote practice. One antidote practice is to take up an antidote. So there's kind of two ways. One practice is to not take up an antidote and to simply experience sleepiness. The other practice is to take up an antidote and make some effort to wake up. So usually we say in zazen, it's good to make an effort to wake up. So usually I'd say maybe 90, 99 times out of 10, I'd say make some effort to wake up. Kazon writes quite a bit about all kinds of ways to wake up. He was really focused on, he put a lot of attention on it. So the first thing, so this says, first it says, what does it say here? It says make an effort for cognition. Something like, let me go back to, It says clarity of cognizance.

[76:38]

So it says make an effort. Write effort. Just summon up some effort. So I'd say first begin with your body posture. Refresh your body posture. Find your attention, your energy. See if you can find energy rising up your back. So it's helpful to lift your head here. Lift up the top of your head. Straighten up. So if you're noting that, so you're doing this. Okay, bring myself up, lift up, see if I can visualize energy coming up from the base of my spine. Yoga, some yoga schools talk about kundalini energy. We all have that, it's nothing special. Kundalini energy. It's always rising, we can have a sense of it, rising up through the spine. Kaisan then talks about Try concentrating right here. Bring your concentration either to where your hairline is or to your forehead.

[77:42]

Try opening your eyes wide and then relaxing them. Try stimulating the breath by pushing out the exhale. At the end of the exhale, do a little... And then notice, oh, okay, I'm falling asleep. Then again, make effort. At some point, okay, after you've done that nine out of 10 times, the 10th time you can say, okay, I'll just be aware of sleepiness. Okay? So it's good to, so usually in Zen, we don't necessarily take up If we go to page four, since we're there, on page four where the hindrance is, we don't necessarily take up antidote practices. But we choose to sometimes.

[78:45]

We say, okay, let me take up an antidote practice. If I'm angry, maybe I'll take up the practice of loving kindness. But sometimes we say, I'm angry, I'll take up the practice of full awareness of anger. Not trying to not trying to oppose it, but trying to study it completely by noticing exactly what it is and how it feels. So I'm offering this as, well, there's a lot of freedom in our practice, a lot of freedom. But when you take up a practice, take it up wholeheartedly. Take up an antidote practice, take it up wholeheartedly. So you thoroughly understand how that works and its limitation. Yes? Just to follow up on that, how do we define something as a distraction? For example, if we say sleepiness is a distraction, anger is a distraction.

[79:49]

I guess my thought around that too is like distinguishing concentration versus distraction. Yeah, so anything... Anything that compels or impels your attention from the present moment. What if I'm fully with the distraction, is that concentration? Being fully with anything is not a distraction. But you may not know what is to be fully with it. What is it to be fully with it? To be fully with it is to completely include it without any preference about it. So I wouldn't call it distraction then?

[80:54]

Or think of it as a negative thing? Right, you wouldn't think of it as this is beyond good and bad, beyond any judgment. You wouldn't think of it as positive or negative. It's just what it is. Now you might notice there's this moment which is slightly noticing something that is emerging as a distraction. It's coming into awareness as a distraction because you're concentrated here. So the distraction would be, okay, to begin to judge something or to begin to have a story about it that takes you, okay, that's very compelling. Or it may be a feeling of cloudiness that comes over, like sloth and torpor. You may not even be able to identify it as a distraction because it doesn't even have any, say, enough shape even.

[81:58]

But you can have a distracted state of mind that's just kind of cloudy. Something's a little... I'll just say there's just some sense of some screen between... It's just not vivid and clear. So to be present with that then is again, what can I do? I can be present with it. So if I'm concentrated on and something else arrives, then it seems like it becomes a distraction at the point that I say, this is concentration and this other thing is distracting me. Is that the point at which it becomes distraction when I label it that way? This is a good, very fine question. At what point does it, the point at which you actually are diverted by it.

[83:00]

Or what if that's just the next thing to concentrate on? What is it that you're concentrating on? What is your intention? So if you're concentrating on the breath, then you don't exclude thoughts that arise. You can stay concentrated on the breath and thoughts arise. But the moment that your attention goes primarily to the thought rather than primarily to the breath, sensation in the present moment, I'd say then you become distracted. It depends on my intention also. It does depend on intention, yeah. With no intention and there's no distraction either. So distraction comes up, the possibility of distraction comes up with the intention of concentration, with the intention of focus.

[84:07]

So if I intend to focus here, then anything else is a distraction. If I don't intend to focus here, there's no distraction. So that's just that... When we set up something as a focus, we're also setting up a potential for distraction. We're actually creating a kind of tension. But it's a healthy intention to be focused on present moment. Why is it healthy? Because human beings are involved in dukkha and suffering. Usually we're involved in greed, hate, and delusion, as we say. And since we... Since we have this direction, we have this teaching from our wise Buddhas in the past, you know, saying, oh, yes, there's a tendency for human beings to suffer. In fact, human beings, most of the time, are caught up in suffering.

[85:16]

And there is a way of liberation. Suzuki Roshi is saying in The Buddha is saying the same thing, fundamentally the same thing. There is a way of liberation, and the way of liberation is to be present. And the way to be present is to study how you get distracted from the present. And to study how you get distracted from the present is helpful to have something a practice of focusing attention, of concentration. So this is kind of circling back to what I opened with, that we need a kind of laboratory. It's actually healthy for us to have a laboratory. It's healthy for us. If we have the right intention, it's even healthy to come to a monastery for a while, you know, where we can just really devote ourselves.

[86:21]

To just being present. And used by the whole intention of this practice period is to support liberation. Not just for you, but for everyone. And to support liberation, we're taking up a practice of doing whatever the schedule says. when it's time to sit zazen, sit zazen, you know. And then a way to sit zazen is to focus on the breath and to be paying attention to the body. This, you know, usually we say, you know, just sitting upright, but Dogen says, you know, pay attention to alignment, that your ears and your shoulder and your hips are in alignment, that your nose and your sternum and your navel are in alignment. So you pay attention to your body sitting. The Satipatthana Sutta just says crossing your legs and sitting upright.

[87:26]

It doesn't really go into so much more detail about that. But we have an oral tradition and of course a lot of it's been written down lately about how do we sit? How do we compose our body? So to take all that into account and recall that as we sit zazen. And the bell rings, and it's time to get up and do kinyin, and to mindfully attend to each, placing each breath. Since I mentioned it, just to say, the kinyin that I suggest is that you let your breath guide your stepping, and when the in-breath starts, so you know the beginning of the in-breath, and you lift the heel of your trailing foot, or if it's the first step, the first foot, which I do the right foot, since there was some description of King Hin in Ru Jing's teaching, and so he said, start with the right foot, so I start with the right foot.

[88:36]

It doesn't really matter, but it's helpful to have. You've got to start with one foot or the other, right? So I start with the right foot, and then the in-breath, as soon as you notice, oh, in-breath, pick up the heel, For the whole in-breath, you're lifting that foot. At the completion of the in-breath, the foot's off the floor. And then begin the out-breath, placing the foot, settling, shifting your whole weight to it on the course of the out-breath. And then you're there until, you know, there's a pause maybe between the breaths, right? Then you're there, and then the beginning of the in-breath, lift the heel of the trailing foot. So just to do that mindfully. So this is bringing your mindful attention into the whole body in movement. But then you can extend that into, you know, this talks about mindfulness of the body while walking, sitting, lying down, standing.

[89:40]

So you can bring that attention to your posture, your body, throughout the day. So I suggest... Mindfully being aware of your body posture throughout the whole day here. First thing when you wake up in the morning. What's the awareness of the bodily posture? How do I move from lying down to sitting up? Sitting up, being aware of sitting up. How do I move from sitting up to standing? Being aware... of all the sensations of the body and standing through the whole course of the day, moment by moment, fully inhabiting the body and being fully aware of the body. And it's helpful to be centered here in your body as you do that. And then when you're standing someplace, whatever it is,

[90:45]

You're a server and you're standing and you're waiting for the next thing you do at that moment. You can be completely upright and relaxed and finding the breath. Oh, the breath. And so then the awareness is to take care of the breath now and then do the next thing. So when the next thing happens, oh, I need to pick up the pot. then my full attention is on picking up the pot. So this is throughout the day with bringing full awareness to each action. And that's the whole foundation of mindfulness of the body. So please enjoy this experiment. Foundation of mindfulness and We've gone quite a while and since the Tonto is not here, the Ina will have to figure out when we go back to whatever's next.

[91:51]

We'll go back and start Zazen 1105 and enter through the back door. Please be in and seated and ready for Zazen by 1105. There will be three bells, one of the short bearing Zazen and then we'll go into service. So thank you for your good questions. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma Talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[92:34]

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